Meet Mark

Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...

The Savagely Effective Mace

I once said that the most Primal piece of exercise equipment was the clubbell, but I think I may have been wrong – I was forgetting all about the mace.

Rather than fend off purse-snatchers and kidnappers (like the one to the right might do), the mace we’re interested in fends off muscle atrophy (although I suppose you could use it as a weapon). Its appearance is jarring and rather clumsy, our dexterous manipulation of it even more so. That’s the point, though. It’s supposed to be difficult to handle. Just like the kettlebell, the sandbag, and the slosh tube, the effectiveness of the mace workout relies upon the grossly uneven weight distribution of the equipment. This is especially pronounced in the mace, which boasts both a long shaft and a lack of counterbalance. As a result, your workout options with the mace are a bit limited – but this isn’t a strike against it. It’s actually one of the benefits, since the relatively simple, basic movements of the mace offer a well-rounded, comprehensive workout for your body without a whole lot of fuss.

The mace, or gada, is essentially a weight on the end of a shaft. It can be a rock on a stick, a ball of cement attached to an old shovel handle, or even gym weights affixed to one end of a barbell. The longer the shaft, the more resistance you’ll encounter, and it should go without saying that heavier weights will also increase resistance. As a workout tool, the mace was popularized by Near Eastern wrestlers, including perhaps the most famous one of all: the Great Gama. Gama toured the world around the turn of the 20th century, issuing challenges to local and global champions while going undefeated for his entire career. He also used the mace extensively. Now, I’m not suggesting his success was due to his gada workouts, but I’m sure they didn’t hurt.

Even non-wrestlers could stand to gain from employing a little mace work now and then. The basic movement – an around-the-head-swing with a push-pull mechanic – taxes the entire upper body. You begin by holding the mace upright about waist high with your elbows close to your body. You then push upwards, and as the weight begins to fall behind your head, you pull it around to the other side and repeat the process. You’re both using momentum and fighting it. Initiating the movement, letting gravity exert its pull, and then exerting your own force as a counterbalance. All strength training is, to some extent, a fight against gravity, but it generally takes place on a single plane (usually vertical). Mace work is far more than that; you’re twisting, pulling against centrifugal force, and contorting yourself across multiple planes. Just check out this video for an example of a basic mace swing.

As you know, I’m not big on targeting specific muscles with isolation exercises, and I maintain that the multi-joint, compound movements are pretty much all we need for optimum Primal fitness. Doing endless amounts of bicep curls is a great way to get a ridiculous, asymmetrical body, but it won’t do much for actual athletic performance. Mace work is great in that it undoubtedly works the entire upper body, including the core, the arms, shoulders, and grip, only it does so in a dynamic, fluid fashion. It’s almost like a crescendo of isolation exercises – the shoulders pushing, the lats and biceps pulling, with the constant backdrop of a tense, active core and hands. At the end of a mace workout, you’ll feel the individual muscles crying out in pain, almost as if you had worked out each one individually. And you have, but with a real purpose. You’ll have all the superficial benefits of the beach body exercises with some actual fitness results to back them up.

If the mace is a little too heavy for you, choke up on the shaft. Conversely, if you’re looking for a bigger challenge, move your hands as low as you can handle. Whichever you do, maintaining a brisk but controlled pace will work on muscle endurance and serve as an intense metabolic conditioning workout.

Making Your Own Mace

Making your own mace is an easy affair. You could buy one for upwards of $200 (shipping included), but why not save that money for a side of grass-fed beef? I found a few simple methods for making your own mace. The first, from DIY Strength, involves a 1” bar loaded with weights on one end. The advantage to this method is that you’ll always be able to adjust the weight as your strength increases, but the disadvantage is that the weight of the bar itself might throw you off. If you try this out, make sure you use collars to secure the weights!

The second one is a bit more involved, but it’s far less expensive. According to Steve Maxwell, all you need is the long handle of a gardening shovel, a kiddie-sized basketball (or a regulation sized ball, if you think you can handle it), a few nails, and a bag of Quikcrete (or any instant concrete mix). Steve’s also put up a video demonstration of his homemade mace.

The third DIY mace involves a 16 lb bowling ball and a steel pipe:

If you’re intrigued, make sure you take part in the Primal Blueprint Health Challenge next month (begins August 3)! We may (wink, wink) be giving away a mace as a prize.

I’ve never used a macebell before, but I’ve been using clubbells for 3 years and love it.

Don’t let the HANDle fool you, club swinging is a full body activity – not just upper body. I like to think of it as a tool of integration. Anyone who has done some serious club swinging will know that high performance is only possible if you utilize the entire body, and this usually requires proper leg drive and hip snap for most movements. You connect that to your macebell or clubbell with good core activation and proper arm biomechanics.

My only word of caution is that accidents can and do happen – even with experienced club swingers. One clip to the head can mean lights out or worse. I’d hate to take concrete or steel right to the head, and I would never personally recommend a plate-loaded version – no matter how sturdy those collars seem!

I think all the pieces of equipment that Mark listed are all great tools to use. Personally, sometimes I find myself getting caught up using all of these various tools, even simple barbells and weights. I always seem to go back to the bodyweight stuff though. It’s just fun for me and less complicated. There’s nothing my bare feet, an open field and some sturdy tree branches. Great book BTW, Mark! Thanks.

Sledgehammers are not ideal replacements for a well-made maceball and there are three specific shortcomings.

First, the handle is not radially symmetrical, which means that as the hammer rotates during the swing, you’ll tear up the skin on your hands more.

Second, the handle is not quite long enough, as you want the weight to swing to about your knees.

Third, the weight on the sledgehammer is not shaped to be safely swung close to your body. You WILL hit your body with your mace and it shouldn’t leave large bruises when you make contact. Those edges around the faces of the hammer hurt.

Weight discs, concrete in a basketball, a bowling ball, or a plastic covered metal sphere (what you get if you spend the $200) are all round and can still hurt and bruise if you hit squarely enough, but are less likely to cause serious damage from a glancing hit.

I’ve just started using a sledgehammer after reading about Shovelglove. It’s a sledgehammer with the head wrapped in an old sweater for safety. I’m including a layer of large cell bubble wrap in mine.
It’s an excellent way to build functional fitness, because the user mimics movments like shoveling snow, stoking a coal furnace or churning butter. There are many more movements that can be found on YouTube or the home site: http://www.shovelglove.com/

I started mace swinging last fall. I’ve got a “Monster Mace” from StrongerGrip.com. You can load it with shot up to 50 pounds. I’ve only got 21 in mine right now and let me tell you, 100 swings with that thing is a pretty damn good workout. If I’m short on time and need to get a quick workout in the mace is the tool I grab.

I like it, great workout tool. I’ve been training more with Kettlebell over this last year. The sledge hammer looks like a great idea, and loads of fun. I’ll give it a go when I get home from New York.

Just received the loadable macebell from Stronger Grip, and played with it doing 360’s and 10-2’s this last weekend. In a word, awesome. I have been a kettlebell user for the last year, and the mace is a perfect compliment/change of pace to kb work. My core, lats, triceps are sore. Regarding the wrists, if you do kb work you will get it. The wrists act more as a pivot with the body propelling the macebell and your hands/grip coupling the macebell to your body.

This all seems rather silly. Picking up medieval weapons as a paradigm for 21st century ‘functional’ workout?! C’mon. Why not just buy yourself a 12 or 15lb shotput? 15lbs at 120mm in your hand is nothing to joke about. You can do all the clubbell or Mace or whatever exercises, work your grip, and spend maybe 30-50 dollars, less than a decent kettlebell.

Ever see the upper body development on an Olympic Shot Putter? Shoulders? Arms? Chest? ‘Nuff said.

MACE, BRILLIANT, i love strength training and have been getting a bit bored with the gym of late, this is sort of stuff is great, more people should take a serious look at this sort of stuff. Have been beating tyres with sledges and doing olypic lifts with 120 lb sacks i get some strange looks from people down the local park though.

I think that weapon pictured is a morningstar. Maces shouldn’t have spikes like that. To quote wikipedia:

The morning star is a medieval weapon consisting of a spiked club resembling a mace, usually with a long spike extending straight from the top and many smaller spikes around the particle of the head. The spikes distinguish it from a mace, which can have, at most, flanges or small knobs.

I bought a 1.5″ diameter 40″ long steel bar from a local metal shop for $23, then bought two 2.5lbs weight plates from a store and welded them to one end to imbalance the bar. I now have a very awkward 30lbs mace that provides killer workouts, total price about $30. To make it easier to manage you just move your grip further up the bar until you’re strong enough to use the full weight.

Dude, just buy a log splitter from your local hardware store. They’re the sledgehammers with the long handle you can find in most garden tools section (with the axes at warehouse stores). They come in 4, 8, and 10 pound sizes and cost around thirty bucks.

Oh, and after I posted I saw ALL the comments. Anyone who say no to the sledge is in one of two camps: 1. They work for onnit and want you to buy their product, or 2. They have graduated past a re pound weight and just need something heavier ( working on joining this second group).